Lots o' cfls

8-27w 1400 lumen 5500k (day light)
4-23w 1500 lumen 3500k (bright white)
4-23w 1600 lumen 2700k (soft white)


Which would be the best combo of lights to start on?? I spent a total of $60 on cfls!! ugh..... so how should I run these puppys, the grow space is 4.5' tall 2' deep and 3.5' wide for 6 plants max with the bubbleponic type setup. Any help would be appreciated. here are pics of my unopened cfls.

My own limited experience with the 5500k was that they were excellent for veg. I do see the recommends for the mix of cfl's, but 5500k seemed really good by itself in vegging.

use all that shit!!!!!!!!!!!! thats how you gotta grow with cfls. do some training and your gonna get some fat nuggets

Is it a good rule of thumb that you get a gram per watt?? Does this appy to cfls that are 23 watts but eqiv to 100 watts?? would this produce 100 grams or 23 grams??

edgewater21 said:

Is it a good rule of thumb that you get a gram per watt?? Does this appy to cfls that are 23 watts but eqiv to 100 watts?? would this produce 100 grams or 23 grams??

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A very good question. Part of the answer is that strain is a big part of the quantity you will get. Some strains big yielders, some others not so much

That said, 1 gram per watt is the 'pikes peak' of cfl. A few of the best growers seem to have hit this, not many. For a 1st grow, and it goes well, should bet somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 gram per watt. 0.6 grams per watt is considered excellent.

ok but are we basing this on 100 watt equivilants or the 23 actual watts? I ask this because I hear its all about lumens and a 23 watt CFL has mny more lumens than say a 100 watt incondescent bulb. All my bulbs put together total 20,000+ lumens, what should i expect to yield from 6 plants, strain bein wonder woman nirvana skunk.

edgewater21 said:

ok but are we basing this on 100 watt equivilants or the 23 actual watts? I ask this because I hear its all about lumens and a 23 watt CFL has mny more lumens than say a 100 watt incondescent bulb. All my bulbs put together total 20,000+ lumens, what should i expect to yield from 6 plants, strain bein wonder woman nirvana skunk.

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Actual watts. Equivalent watts really aren't useful to growers.
Not familiar with the strain exactly, though skunk in general is considered to be a good yielder. Will be very tough to predict your outcome. Too many variables, temp, ventilation, soil, nutes.

edgewater21 said:

Is it a good rule of thumb that you get a gram per watt?? Does this appy to cfls that are 23 watts but eqiv to 100 watts?? would this produce 100 grams or 23 grams??

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you gotta really know what your doing to get a gram per watt

ok so lets say .5 grams x actual watts would we multiply this by 6 for the 6 plants?? 400 actual watts x .5= 200(grams) so maybe 5-7 ounces??

edgewater21 said:

ok so lets say .5 grams x actual watts would we multiply this by 6 for the 6 plants?? 400 actual watts x .5= 200(grams) so maybe 5-7 ounces??

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An ounce per plant is possible, but that would be all females. You will probably have some males. 3 females may be what you get, unless working with clones. 2 ounce per plant is high for cfl, so that would be a very good grow.

growone said:

An ounce per plant is possible, but that would be all females. You will probably have some males. 3 females may be what you get, unless working with clones. 2 ounce per plant is high for cfl, so that would be a very good grow.

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well i got 6 feminized seeds so they should all be female.

I can definitely say that more lamps is better, just so long as you can ventilate it. Here's my single plant grown with 9 cfl's.

Goodlovin said:

I can definitely say that more lamps is better, just so long as you can ventilate it. Here's my single plant grown with 9 cfl's.

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Is that a bagseed?nice

Sounds like you got some expensive CFL's.

Personally I like to use 42w's if possible. Any wattage too much higher starts getting inefficient, but much less wattage, they're too weak.

Plank looks danky nonetheless, nice job and enjoy dude

BIOHazard87 said:

Sounds like you got some expensive CFL's.

Personally I like to use 42w's if possible. Any wattage too much higher starts getting inefficient, but much less wattage, they're too weak.

Plank looks danky nonetheless, nice job and enjoy dude

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Well thats the price for cfs anywhere besides the net, and on he net you dea with shipping and i heard anything over 23watts is inefficient and more 23 watt bulbs have more surface area on the plants instead of 2 or 3 higher wattage bulbs. just my take on it.

edgewater21 said:

Well thats the price for cfs anywhere besides the net, and on he net you dea with shipping and i heard anything over 23watts is inefficient and more 23 watt bulbs have more surface area on the plants instead of 2 or 3 higher wattage bulbs. just my take on it.

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I'm having very good results with 26w. The kind you can get a walmart at $13 for 6. GE 26w, 2700k. They have a very nice sweet spot for lumens per watt - 1750 initial lumens which is at 67.3 lumens a watt. Compares quite favorably with more expensive cfl's. The 26w 5500k and 6500k are more expensive. About $4 a piece in the chain stores.

i use mixed spectrum i hear 3500k doesnt do much for the plant tho...i basically went with mainly 6500k bulbs for veg....and still had a couple 2700k bulbs in there jus for mixing spectrums and iv heard that it does really help....i mean either way it cant hurt...but then when ur rdy to flower just swap out ur 6500ks for 2700ks and vice versa. so that u have more 6500k during veg and more 2700k during flowering. im using 18 cfls in my closet and its worked out great gl man happy growing

and also...gram per watt isnt really a good way to measure how much yield ur gonna get...yield is based on ALOT of thing...generally they say u get about an ounce a plant mayb a tad less but it depends on the strain...lighting...nutes u use...proximity of the lights to the plant ur growing medium..if this is ur first grow...ur gpnna fuk them up at some point or another. ur first grow is always ur test run...i dont know anyone that just started growing and grew amazing bud without giving it nute burn or some other problem a couple times before they got the hang of it...but IMO i wouldnt guess how much ur gonna yield based on ur wattage...its unrealistic...let us know how it goes

the cheap 26 watt 6 pack at wally world does not list the kelvin rating. lol they probably are low kelvin.

edgewater21 said:

the cheap 26 watt 6 pack at wally world does not list the kelvin rating. lol they probably are low kelvin.

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Yeah, those are 2700k bulbs. You can go to the GE web site and look up the model #. But they are kick ass bulbs for flowering. This plant was flowered with 3 of these, 78w total. Used a lot of reflector.